Friday, April 18, 2008

According to CNN, football great/god Herschel Walker write a book revealing he suffers from Dissiciative Identity Disorder. This disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a condition where people display multiple identities or personalities, usually called "alters." Generally, when in one of these alters, the person won't remember anything about what they did. In Walker's case, he was prone to violent outbursts, at one time attacking and trying to choke his wife, not remembering it afterward.

DID is not what like how it is portrayed in movies. No nifty Primal Fear "third person" or narrator/Tyler Durden dichotomy. Sorry.

Walker claims that his DID didn't really surface until after he retired from football. When he was playing, in college and professionally, he had somewhere to channel his mind, something keeping him occupied. Once he retired, he no longer had that, and that is when his DID really took over.

No, people, claiming to have DID is not a cop-out to excuse violent behavior. It's a very serious mental condition. And mental conditions are as serious as physical ones, sometimes even more so. Walker would have nothing to gain by sharing this story if it wasn't true. Maybe my view on him is skewed (I did go to Georgia, after all), but he hasn't been seen as anything other than a great football player. He hasn't been caught up in some OJ-style crime where he needs this to defend himself. He wrote a book, shared his story, he wouldn't gain anything by lying.

1 comment:

Interesting. That must be why he recently started doing MMA fighting. I don't know much about any of it (I actually landed here googling for the vagina emoticon so I could text my husband lol) but it would make sense.